ATTACK BY ANGRY HEN TURKEY

On the North American Wild Turkey (Meliagris gallopavo) 

The wild turkey is a dry ground chicken-like bird native to North America. The species originally occupied all of North America east of the Rockies and south of Canada, as well as isolated areas of central Mexico and central California.   

Adult male turkeys or “Toms”, (also called  “gobblers”) may weigh up to 25 pounds, with a body length of about 50 inches and may stand at two feet high. The hen turkey is smaller and more slender and may weigh about half that of a gobbler and is correspondingly shorter. The wing span of a mature male bird may reach well over 4 feet.  Turkeys are dark-gray-brown or coppery colored. Toms have a reddish head and often long, red fleshy wattles on their throat. The male also long tails which they can spread out into impressive fan-shapes in breeding displays as well as a fleshy“beard” which hangs from their breast. 

Turkeys can fly quite well and do so regularly to avoid predators or to reach roosting perches above the forest floor. They can fly for distances of a quarter mile (@400 meters) or more, often remaining close to the ground.  They often roost in trees at night and can fly up to tens of meters to reach these roost sites.    

Not so long ago I was attacked by an angry hen turkey attempting to protect a brood of eight young in her care.

The incident occurred this way:

While driving on a narrow country road winding through a local wooded area, I was altered by the flash of red break lights ahead that the auto ahead of made an abrupt stop. 

Beyond the stopped vehicle, I could see the cause, it was a hen turkey slowly and deliberately crossing the road. And behind her fowlling in a neat orderly line were seven tiny poults or “baby” turkeys.  I watched, as in a military-like precision the line of tiny gray poults disappeared one by one into the brush on the opposite side of the road. 

The car ahead started to move. Alarmingly, just at that moment, an eighth poult emerged from the far side of the road, running frantically to catch up with its mother and siblings. Again, the car ahead stopped short, and the last poult skittered past the front tire to disappear into the bordering brush. Only then traffic slowly moved on. 

What a lovely sight. Turkeys have become so common these days, that regular polite interactions with this adaptable, large wild bird leave most suburbanites nonplussed. Secretly we  marvel at the  ability of this large wild bird to survive and prosper in a dangerous man-made world of scattered remnant woodlands, speeding traffic, housing developments and numerous domestic predators (i.e. cats and dogs). 

The turkey’s success in suburbia is, in part, the result of the return of forests! New York State’s land area is almost two-thirds forested.  The 18 million acres of NY State forests represent about 61% of our total land area.  Much of this forest land is excellent turkey habitat.  Then too, the Wild Turkey is a large bird—most weigh about 15-20 pounds. At that size, they are able to effectively defend themselves from the most common small predators found in modern forests. Then too, they are also excellent short distance fliers.  They can escape certain predators by flying.  Flight also permits them to exploit scattered and isolated feeding and roosting sites which occur within the highly divided and segmented terrane of suburbia. Remnant patches of wood lot and feeding areas isolated by large scale housing development are often unavailable to other terrestrial-bound wild life, by heavily trafficked busy road ways.  Turkey flocks can access these areas.  

Their habit of roosting in trees at night, which provides them protection from terrestrial predators. Their tendency to flock together offers further protection,  They are also pretty smart. 

To survive in a suburban habitat the turkey must be highly protective of its young. On an occasion in early spring described above, I encountered a mother hen herding eight tiny gray and fluffy poults.  The area she had chosen for her brood was a brushy woodland crossed by an asphalt-surfaced bike path.  I habitually walked on this path and had seen this same hen and her poults the day before. (Perhaps the one seen and recorded above crossing the roadway.) 

On that day I walked briskly along and coming up over a rise, I observed the heb turjey ahead . As I approached, she was herding her brood of poults across the path.  As I approached I counted three poults follow her across the path..but the other five I had seen earlier in the day were slower and I assumed they were behind her.  As I came up closer, I realized  that the hen and some of her poults were on one side of the path, while the other five (?) were on likely on the opposite side. Her brood was apparently separated by the path upon which I was walking.  

As a result, as I approached, I was met with angry cackling and clucking from the high grass bordering the pathway. The cackling became louder and soon the bobbing gray head of the angry hen appeared just above the two-foot-high grass. She rushed along close to the side of the path, partly hidden by the high grass, anxiously pacing along with me and continuing her frantic clucking. 

I found myself between her and the other members of her brood. Not frightened of her, and sure that I could outpace her, I continued on my course moving along a bit more rapipidly. But angry turkeys can run very fast on the ground. As I sped up into a trot, she sped up easily moving out ahead of me.  Then, without warning,  she stopped and turned toward me to jump into the air, flying directly at me. She rose up steeply off the ground, her feet outstretched,  aiming directly for my head!  I ducked, as her wide wings brushed over my head, and I could feel a puff of air as her wings passed over my head.  Her  long reddish claws passing  just over my hat.  I shifted my position, yelling and swinging  my arms out wide.   But this made no impression, for she landed on the opposite side of the path, and simply turned and made another flying pass at my head.  

I stopped to make another  attempt at a defense by jumping up and down waving my arms vigorously and yelling: “Scat..Go Away, Scat”, but this seemed only to arouse her further.  At this point, a mental image of the  velociraptor  attack scene from the film “Jurassic Park” flashed through my head.  Her movements and angry look looked very reptilian like as she landed this time on the center of the path, to face me directly.  She had my number now.  She must have realized, I was more frightened of her than she was of me. 

The angry hen turkey clucking loudly, faced me from the center of the path. She stared at me with one angry eye, clucking loudly which made her long neck throb and the dangling gray wattle on her head jiggle violently, She spread her wings wide.  The wide wings seemed to more or less cover any route of escape I had. So, I simply turned around and retreated. But that was a mistake. 

Seeing my back in retreat, seemed to only encourage further attack. She flew at me again. This time knocking the hat off my head with her feet.  I grabbed my hat and turned to face her, waving my soft hat as ineffective protection from her sharp claws, as I slowly backed away. I did notice that my voice cracked as I yelled and my lips felt dry.  Facing her I continued slowly to retreat for about fifty feet which seemed to get me out of her threat zone.  At that point she quietly turned into the brush and disappeared. I didn't wait to see if she rejoined her poults.  I turned and walked briskly back to where I started, with a pulse rate much higher than usual for a brisk walk.

When observed in the field these wild birds are a startling reminder of the underlying principle of the fact that the natural law still governs us all. Though commonly seen, on roadways, bike paths and elsewhere the life and history of this now much more common species is very little known. Even their very name “turkey”  elicits questions.

Addendum.

On July 30,  2024, I observed what I assume to be the same hen turkey in the same area described above. By this date observed only four (4) poults with her. Fortunately they were all on the same side of the path, and as I walked by, she clucked” them along into the deeper brush on that side of the path. 

On September 13, 2024 I again encountered the same hen turkey with her brood of poults. Again there were four. At this time they were about as big as a yearling hen chicken…They were feeding on seed heads of grasses along the Rail Path. The hen also appeared to be feeding on the red berries of the Russian Olive (Eleagnus augustifolia) which is a common species along the Rail Path in this area.